Unmanned Systems Technology 011 | C-Astral Bramor ppX | IMUs | Autonomous farming | UAV Turbines UTP50R | London Show report | Advanced materials | Las Vegas Expo report

62 F or centuries, the London Docklands has acted as a vital nerve centre of industry, engineering and commerce, both for Britain and the international community. The ExCeL exhibition centre continues that tradition, and in autumn 2016 hosted the third annual Commercial UAV Show, bringing UAS developers and operators together from around the world. ETLG, a supplier of motion sensors for land, sea, air and space applications, showcased a number of new technologies for unmanned vehicle navigation, including two new inertial measurement units (IMUs) from Honeywell. “Both the HG4930 and the HG1120 are MEMS-based IMUs, which is how they’re kept small in size, lightweight and low in power consumption,” Jeremy Connell explained. Designed for use in AUVs, UGVs, UAVs and other robotic platforms across a wide range of mission applications, the HG4930 is 82 cm 3 in volume, weighs 160 g and consumes up to 3 W, while the HG1120 takes up 29 cm 3 , weighs 70 g and has a maximum power consumption of 1.1 W. Both systems use solid-state electronics, accelerometers and gyrometers, with the HG1120 additionally including magnetometers to sense absolute position around the z axis and allow for heading updating via their detection of Magnetic North. While it might seem unusual for a multinational defence contractor to be present at a show for commercial UAV applications, Lockheed Martin’s new Hydra Fusion Tools software presents major opportunities for business and civil operators. “Hydra fuses maps, images, video and intelligence, in real-time, into a common operational picture. It lets end- users quickly turn data into actionable intelligence,” said Dustin Engen. This common operational picture manifests as a 3D world presentation, created by simultaneously localising and mapping incoming imagery feeds, and is thus capable of recreating any map or site surveyed by an unmanned system. Mapping of agriculture or infrastructure for example can be accomplished and analysed with greater speed, depth and autonomy through the platform than through systems that need time before data can be uploaded or exploited. Engen also noted that Lockheed’s Indago 2 UAV can be supplied with Hydra Fusion Tools, installed on a laptop on the ground, to use in tandem with the quadcopter’s DUO+ gyro-stabilised dual sensor gimbal, which offers a 10 MP London calling December/January 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology Rory Jackson reports on some of the principal product launches and announcements at this key UAV exhibition The Commercial UAV Show in London is billed as the largest of its kind in Europe